Independent buying guides
For buyers spending once on a watch or a ring and wanting the hallmark, movement type and resale pattern clear first. One buying question per guide, formulas shown in full, and sources with check dates.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Joe Haupt from USA · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How to tell genuine from convincing.
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Photo: Joe Haupt from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
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Photo: Barochat · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Joe Haupt from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What holds value, and what does not.
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Photo: Mauro Cateb · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Keeping it usable for years instead of months.
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Photo: Earthsphere · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Three movements, three different jobs for the owner. What a chronometer mark certifies, what the water-resistance line permits, and the yearly running cost.
Photo: Joe Haupt from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Authenticity
Gold filled, vermeil, sterling, 950 platinum and laboratory-grown all have fixed thresholds in the FTC Jewelry Guides. Here is each number and how to check it.
Photo: Mauro Cateb · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
The same $600 watch costs $0.77 or $5.00 a wear depending only on how often you wear it. The full arithmetic, with running costs, resale and import duty.
Photo: Nadihauming Hong · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Applies a yearly retention rate you choose to a purchase price, and shows the cost of ownership.
value after n years = price x (retention rate) ^ n; cost of ownership = price - value
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Price divided by the number of wears you realistically expect, with cleaning and repair added.
cost per wear = (price + cleaning cost per year x years + repairs) / (wears per month x 12 x years)